Not even likely, as you keep ignoring. "In a best case scenario" he could have saved some of them. ****, I'll up it and say that best case scenario he could have saved all of them, but it isn't realistic. A more likely outcome of a single gun in a building that size is the same outcome. Twenty plus dead. You're ignoring that just because the shooter stopped for police dogs, police tactical units, a bomb squad, and a state police helicopter, he might not feel that intimidated by a fourth grade teacher or Paul Blart with a single 9mm and questionable training, and I'm being highly generous with the caliber for you on this one, because let's face facts in that there will never, eeeeeeeeeeeever, be a higher caliber weapon in a school just out of fear of piercing walls and causing more damage to the people they're meant to protect. You'll never get a .44. That is an example of an absolute truth. You're also assuming that if there was a gun on the premises that everything else would have played out exactly the same. I highly doubt that if there was a gun, the little creep would have gone through the front door, which would pretty much be where you stationed a guard. A roaming guard is only good if you've got multiple guards to cover a large portion of the area, and one in the middle makes him useless in all directions. Realistically, if there was an element of danger, he'd probably have had to think more thoroughly about it and most likely there would have been more blood shed, not less. Kid might have been mentally unsound, but I've yet to read anything where he was stupid. He was an honor student.

If you want to argue that when you say "likely" you now actually mean "in the best case scenario where everything lines up perfectly," then go ahead. But the likely outcome is that a single gun in Larry Daley's hands would have been pretty useless in Sandy Hook, or any similar sized facility.

Edited, Jan 16th 2013 10:13pm by lolgaxe

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George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

The absolute truth is that had even one faculty member at Sandyhook had a firearm available to them on campus, there would have been fewer dead kids, possibly even no dead kids.

I never said it "would have saved all those kids". I said there would have been "fewer dead kids, possibly even no dead kids". If you're going to make a semantic argument, at least get the **** words right. I've acknowledged that I should have put the word "likely" in there, since we can't guarantee that any kids would have been saved. But that really misses the point. There would not have been more dead kids, but a possibility of fewer dead kids.

Says you? How do you know that someone else having a gun during the ordeal would not have provoked the gunner further and made him more aggressive? Or that the addition of the other gun causes someone to get hit by an added bullet fire (cause even the most trained people can make mistakes under pressure)? If we are going to play the what if game with the added guns, why ignore the negative possibilities (other than, it makes your point of view seem better).

My roughly-sketched idea: You need an ATF-issued license to own a gun, which entails passing background and mental health checks, and also passing a written and/or demonstrated safety exam. You have to go to an ATF-run facility every 3-5 years to renew your gun ownership license, which may involve retesting or re-background checking. And you have to bring your registered guns with you. If you don't show up, or don't produce all your guns, you lose your license, and a warrant can be issued to confiscate your guns. You can only resell to strictly-licensed gun dealers (not every corner pawn shop), and all sales must be registered or you and the buyer both lose your license. The government will always buy back your gun at market value. If you report too many guns as "lost" or "stolen," you lose your license.

As for the guns themselves, I'd like to see technology knocked back like 100 years. Handguns have to be revolvers, rifles have to be bolt- or lever-action, shotguns have to be pumped. No type can hold more than 6 rounds.

Handguns have to be revolvers, rifles have to be bolt- or lever-action, shotguns have to be pumped.

Like the .44 Magnum, or the M40, and pump action shotguns tend to not have trigger disconnectors, so accidental (and rapid) discharge there. Granted, none of my examples are hundred year old, but I think the overall point that they're not any less lethal than modern tech is still valid.

Just to add, I prefer revolvers and bolt action rifles for the very reason that they're much more reliable weapons.

____________________________

George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

Handguns have to be revolvers, rifles have to be bolt- or lever-action, shotguns have to be pumped.

Like the .44 Magnum, or the M40, and pump action shotguns tend to not have trigger disconnectors, so accidental (and rapid) discharge there. Granted, none of my examples are hundred year old, but I think the overall point that they're not any less lethal than modern tech is still valid.

Just to add, I prefer revolvers and bolt action rifles for the very reason that they're much more reliable weapons.

Well sure, add whatever trigger disconnectors or safeties modern technology affords. I'm no expert. My only intent was to slow down the rate of fire.

And of course, slowing the rate of fire is an action to mitigate mass shootings, when as I've stated before, the bigger problem is the thousands of "mundane" shootings. And many mundane shootings would be as deadly with a six-shooter as with an uzi, but it will still mitigate those to some degree as well. Harder to hit a bystander with a stray bullet in a gang shooting when there's less bullets flying around.

Yes. I understand that most people have only a simplistic grasp of language

Got that right. See your posts for Exhibit A.

Quote:

It's like saying that it's absolutely true that a good diet and regular exercise will decrease your odds of getting heart disease.

No, it's like saying "The absolute truth is that a good diet & regular exercise will likely stop heart disease." A much different statement and one no one would say unless they just wanted to be laughed at. As you know which is why you changed your example to not include your own language.

Quote:

Of course, once again you'd prefer to argue semantics than the issue at hand

Sure, why not? You're just going to pout and huff and recite the party line anyway ("Idiots will claim... wait, what? The NRA said that? No, I never said idiots!...") so why not have fun mocking your self-important puffery instead? If I wanted to read some dipshit reciting rote stock excuses for firearms, I'd read the NRA's press releases.

As for the guns themselves, I'd like to see technology knocked back like 100 years. Handguns have to be revolvers, rifles have to be bolt- or lever-action, shotguns have to be pumped.

I made the same point way back in the dawn of this thread. Rather than trying to chase the tail of banning classifications (which makes the "assault weapon" ban such a mess), I think we'd be better served to just lay out what parameters are legal.

someproteinguy wrote:

I suppose we'll have to wait for the final draft, but I'm not seeing anything addressing mental health, or how to help keep crazy people away from other people's guns.

Obama said his administration would finalize rules on mental health parity, the requiring of mental healthcare to be covered the same way as physical healthcare. The regulations have languished since 2008, and Senate Democrats had called on Obama to push the rules forward as part of his gun-control recommendations. [...] The White House plan calls for bolstering access to mental health services in schools and encouraging teachers to intervene early when they believe a student needs counseling.

Yes. I understand that most people have only a simplistic grasp of language, but that's a perfectly correct formulation. Absolute refers to truth. Likely refers to the odds of a given outcome.

It's like saying that it's absolutely true that a good diet and regular exercise will decrease your odds of getting heart disease. Does it guarantee that you wont? No. Does it guarantee that everyone who doesn't will? No. But everything else being the same, you're less likely to develop heart disease if you have a good diet and regular exercise than if you don't. That's an "absolute truth".

The absolute truth is that had even one faculty member at Sandyhook had a firearm available to them on campus, there would have been fewer dead kids, possibly even no dead kids.

'Absolute' is redundant adjective with 'truth'. Something is true or it isn't - you know, like being pregnant, or dead.

Beyond that there is no evidence to support your statement. Had even one staff person had a gun, there 'might' have been more bullets flying around, the staff persons gun 'may' have never come out of the locker/drawer/holster, the armed staffer may have added to the body count, and yes it's even 'possible' that the staff person may have disable the shooter before he killed all 26 people. There is no truth or absolute in speculation.

I never said it "would have saved all those kids". I said there would have been "fewer dead kids, possibly even no dead kids"

No indication either approaches anything near reality, so it's sort of a moot point which one you meant. If you meant "it's within the realm of possibility that having armed teachers may or may not have lead to fewer death or injuries" that's pretty accurate. What you've actually stated is unprovable, untestable, unfalsifiable and useless. May as well have said "if more angles had been flying over the school that day, they would have caused that wicked gunman to accidentally shoot himself, saving countless lives"

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

I never said it "would have saved all those kids". I said there would have been "fewer dead kids, possibly even no dead kids"

No indication either approaches anything near reality, so it's sort of a moot point which one you meant. If you meant "it's within the realm of possibility that having armed teachers may or may not have lead to fewer death or injuries" that's pretty accurate. What you've actually stated is unprovable, untestable, unfalsifiable and useless. May as well have said "if more angles had been flying over the school that day, they would have caused that wicked gunman to accidentally shoot himself, saving countless lives"

What about, and I know this is wild, but say the school had made a trap where a lot of spaghetti fell on the shooter and knocked him out? That would have completely eliminated the threat.

What about, and I know this is wild, but say the school had made a trap where a lot of spaghetti fell on the shooter and knocked him out? That would have completely eliminated the threat

WHY AREN'T WE DOING THIS??????

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

If every student had a small explosive charge embedded deep in their brain then any student shooter could be quickly eliminated with minimum collateral damage.

If someone who wasn't a student shot up the school then the charges could give the children a quick, painless death instead.

And depending on size, also take out the shooter. Sure, there would be collateral damage, but aren't 15 dead children better than 100 dead children?

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

Obama said his administration would finalize rules on mental health parity, the requiring of mental healthcare to be covered the same way as physical healthcare. The regulations have languished since 2008, and Senate Democrats had called on Obama to push the rules forward as part of his gun-control recommendations. [...] The White House plan calls for bolstering access to mental health services in schools and encouraging teachers to intervene early when they believe a student needs counseling.

Oh yeah, one other thing I'd like to see. Raise taxes on gun sales. By a lot. Use revenue to pay for all the beefed up administrative costs, background checking, statistical research, etc. And allocate money proportionally to cities/neighborhoods most afflicted by gun violence for some kind of community programs or extra police presence or whatever is deemed to help.

“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But a half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

That's the most moronic thing you've said. How? It will only stop someone if they stop when the detector goes off. I'm reasonably certain that someone who's decided to shoot a bunch of people isn't going to stop because he set off a metal detector.

.....

That makes no sense at all. I'm talking about only one thing: Whether removing the current restrictions on allowing faculty at school to be armed would reduce the likely fatality rate in the event of an shooting incident at the school? You're tossing in completely unrelated things which have no bearing on what I'm saying.

I'm not sure why you're fixated on this "one adult in a classroom" thing. So what? There are many adults in the school. And every single one of them is closer to the shooting than the police. And most of them will be closer than an armed guard. So everything else being the same, if some of them are armed, they will be able to decrease the number of people who die. ......

I never said this would prevent school shootings (let's not use the word 'stop' because it can have at least two very different meanings here). What I have said, repeatedly, is that it would reduce the statistical number of fatalities from school shootings.

Let's remember that armed guards at the school also wont prevent school shootings. And armed police just a few miles away wont prevent school shootings. And gun control, short of eliminating the 2nd amendment wont stop school shootings (and probably wont even then). A proposal does not have to be perfect to still be better than other proposals. Allowing faculty members in schools the option of bringing firearms to school does not cost us anything, but has a great potential to reduce the number of deaths when school shootings occur. This does not preclude other actions as well, but this one doesn't prevent those other ones either. We can tighten restrictions on background checks, we can do more to prevent people with mental problems from obtaining firearms, we can put more security in our schools, and put metal detectors in, and all sorts of other things. But allowing faculty to be armed still reduces the likely fatality rate from shootings in schools in all of those cases on top of whatever other benefits they have themselves.

Wait, wait, wait, wait wait just a minute. So security check points are good enough for international airports, government buildings and installations, but not good enough for a grade school? That's laughable.

You asked "how much quicker could the shooter have been stopped" not "how to prevent anyone from shooting". The quickest way to stop a shooter is at the door when the alarm goes off. If you want to prevent him with the ability to shoot, then you need to side with the weapon law enforcements. As long as the weapons exists, you can't do anything to prevent a person from shooting, only put out measures to hinder or deter them from doing it.

Gbaji wrote:

Yes. But an armed adult has a much greater chance of killing the shooter sooner than if he's unarmed. Thus, decreasing the number of people the shooter can kill before he's stopped. How the **** does this not occur to you? ....

He can't kill at infinite speed. There's always a time element involved. And everything else staying the same, the faster you can get armed opposition to the shooter, the fewer people will die. .....

So? Worst case is that the person has a gun and chickens out and hides instead of confronting the shooter. Which is precisely what they'd do if they weren't armed. Not seeing the problem here.

....

So? An adult or child who would have died if the person hadn't been armed. You're failing to grasp how the statement "everything else being the same" works. The same person who would stop to talk it through with the shooter while armed will presumably take the same course of action if not armed. Not seeing the point you're making here. Being armed at least gives the other person more options to stop the shooter. Being disarmed decreases his options. Again, everything else being the same, the shooter is more likely to kill fewer victims if he's faced with armed opposition than not.

But maybe before 2 dozen? What part of "fewer fatalities" is confusing you?

Read above. You're missing the point, which is that armed or not, that isn't a deterrent for a mass shooting. So, while the shooter is stopped sooner, people are still being killed. Once you realize that we don't live in Hollywood, you'll see that your 50 year old English teacher wont John Wayne him or herself into a better performance than a trained professional.

Gbaji wrote:

Except that the "stupid scenario" tends to happen more often than not. The shooter does not magically appear in the classroom. He tends to start near an entrance to the school, and shoots his way *to* a classroom. In the case of the newtown shooting, he went into the front office area first, shot the principle and a couple staff members, then went through the hallways of the school (presumably shooting at anyone in his way), until he got to the classroom he was targeting. Then he shot the teacher(s) in that classroom and their students.

Similarly, the Columbine shooting mostly occurred in the hallways, not in the classrooms themselves. They shot into classrooms, but did not just stay in one spot the whole time. The Virginia Tech shooter traveled between two different buildings, firing somewhat randomly at people he ran into in the halls and into classrooms as he passed them. In all of those cases, there were ample opportunities for an adult with a firearm to interfere with the shooting.

That's why I said if a person were serious about it. If the goal was to kill a specific person or a mass crowd, then s/he wouldn't be just running down the halls, but going into a specific spot. At that specific spot, any opposition will more than likely be dealt with armed or not. Having a gun doesn't prevent you from being shot and killed.

Gbaji wrote:

You're also forgetting that even if the shooter enters a single classroom and begins killing everyone there, there are other rooms, and other halls, and other members of the faculty. All of them well within distance to approach the shooter from behind while he's shooting folks in that one room. It's not like once he enters that room, the rest of the universe disappears. He goes into one room. Teacher down the hall hears the shooting. He runs to his office, gets his gun, runs to the classroom where the shooting is occurring, and kills the shooter. Everything else staying the same, he'll be able to do that far far faster than police will be able to arrive.

Except I said that the goal of the shooter isn't to avoid death, but to cause the most damage before being killed. The counter is trying to PREVENT the shootings from happening in the first place. While your solution helps to end a shooter on a rampage, it doesn't prevent the rampage. Since the proposed counter is to prevent the rampage, your solution is irrelevant.

Ok. But if the other adults are not armed, they can't do anything about the shooting. That's what you're missing. If the adults who arrive are armed, they can stop the shooting. If they are not, then what? They yell at him to stop from the doorway and get shot? Do you understand that the best way to stop him is if those other adults are armed. It took about 20 minutes for police to arrive at Sandyhook elementary. He did not stop shooting until they arrived on the scene. Are you seriously trying to argue that in 20 minutes not a single other adult faculty member could have gone into the classroom where he was shooting?

Of course they could have. But they couldn't stop him because he was armed and they were not. See how that works? If they had been armed, they could have shot him and stopped the shooting, and likely saved the lives of many children. Read above. So, you believe that a teacher too terrified to physically attack a shooter when attack will gain the courage and skills to take out a shooter while possessing a weapon.

Gbaji wrote:

Great! But someone has to stop the shooter. I'm not opposed to a metal detector at all. That would give the faculty members who brought guns to school even more time to get them and stop the shooter. But again, everything else staying the same the response time of those armed faculty members will be faster than the police. If it takes the police 20 minutes after the metal detector goes off to arrive, and an armed faculty member 5 minutes, then that's 3/4ths less time the shooter has to kill people.

.... Yes. Which is why I said simply posting uniformed guards is of questionable value. They become obvious first targets. A shooter can make a plan to kill the one or two armed guards first, then know that everyone else is helpless. If he has no idea which of the 100 plus faculty members in the school may be armed, he can't make that kind of plan. That's why allowing those faculty members to be armed works.

Once again, unless you're giving children guns, adults will always be the target as they will be the ones to stop the shooting armed or not. Your solution is nice, but it doesn't prevent the mass shooting.

Gbaji wrote:

I never once said no one would have died or gotten hurt. I said the number of fatalities would be lower. So you're basically acknowledging that I'm right, but then deciding to pretend I really said something else? Kinda silly.

"Why? I'm not wrong. The absolute truth is that had even one faculty member at Sandyhook had a firearm available to them on campus, there would have been fewer dead kids, possibly even no dead kids.". Granted, you said the faculty had no chance, but to believe that the kids had a chance is delusional. If the adults were armed, he would have went to the kids first and let the adults come to him.

Says you? How do you know that someone else having a gun during the ordeal would not have provoked the gunner further and made him more aggressive? Or that the addition of the other gun causes someone to get hit by an added bullet fire (cause even the most trained people can make mistakes under pressure)? If we are going to play the what if game with the added guns, why ignore the negative possibilities (other than, it makes your point of view seem better)

I'm talking statistically over all potential shootings over time. Of course it's possible that something bad could happen. But then it's possible that a teacher could crash while driving a group of kids to a school event, killing several of them. Life is full of risks. I'm not ignoring the negatives. I'm arguing that the positives vastly outweigh them.

I linked to this in another thread. While not (yet) peer reviewed, the author does present his methodology and is in the process of having it reviewed. As far as he knows, he's the only person who's ever bothered to attempt to compile this kind of data. What's interesting is that he shows that when police end a potential or actual mass shooting, the average number of deaths is 14.29. When civilians end a potential or actual mass shooting, that number drops to 2.33. That's a massively significant difference. It pretty strongly supports the notion that the faster a shooting is ended, the fewer people die, and the most common way a shooting ends "fast" is when civilians intercede. Thus, it seems pretty logical that the best way to minimize the number of people who die in such shootings is to maximize the ability of civilians in the area to end said shooting. That leads us squarely into both concealed carry and removing restrictions on where weapons can be carried.

The likelihood that an armed civilian attempting to stop a shooter will actually increase the number of deaths is low. The likelihood that said armed civilian will decrease the number of deaths is high. It should not require a rocket scientists to noodle out why.

Wait, wait, wait, wait wait just a minute. So security check points are good enough for international airports, government buildings and installations, but not good enough for a grade school? That's laughable.

When thousands of kids are paying hundreds of dollars every time they walk into the school, then we can talk about the practicality of having that level of security in our public schools. Forgive me for restricting my assumptions to the reasonable ones. We can't provide that level of security at schools. It would cost too much. We can, however, just by removing the existing gun-free zone restrictions in schools, essentially get some level of security "free".

Quote:

The quickest way to stop a shooter is at the door when the alarm goes off. If you want to prevent him with the ability to shoot, then you need to side with the weapon law enforcements. As long as the weapons exists, you can't do anything to prevent a person from shooting, only put out measures to hinder or deter them from doing it.

Sure. But you seem to be under the impression that we either stop the shooter cold right at the door before he fires a shot, or we can't stop him at all until the police arrive. The reality is that stopping every shooter at the door is a near impossibility, if for no other reason than most (all?) schools have multiple points of entry, and in order to ensure we could stop said shooter right there would require multiple guards at each of them. It's simply not practical.

Let's restrict our options to ones that we can actually do, ok?

Quote:

Read above. You're missing the point, which is that armed or not, that isn't a deterrent for a mass shooting. So, while the shooter is stopped sooner, people are still being killed.

If he's stopped sooner, then fewer people are killed. Which is the whole point of this. I'm not precluding other means to attempt to deter or prevent folks from attempting school shootings in the first place. I'm simply suggesting an incredibly simple and cheap solution which would mitigate the harm done during such shootings in the future when/if they occur. Your argument is like insisting there's no reason for seat belts or airbags in cars because the best way to prevent accident fatalities is to avoid ever getting into an accident. Well, in the real world, accidents will happen no matter how much we try to prevent them. Similarly, shootings will happen despite our best efforts. So let's have an extra line of defense aside from just hoping that our background checks, and gun restrictions all work.

Quote:

Once you realize that we don't live in Hollywood, you'll see that your 50 year old English teacher wont John Wayne him or herself into a better performance than a trained professional.

Sure. But the 30 something former Marine now teaching math at the local middle school, who is an avid target shooter and has a concealed license *will* be able to do quite a bit. Let's not pretend that all teachers must be elderly and helpless.

Quote:

That's why I said if a person were serious about it. If the goal was to kill a specific person or a mass crowd, then s/he wouldn't be just running down the halls, but going into a specific spot. At that specific spot, any opposition will more than likely be dealt with armed or not. Having a gun doesn't prevent you from being shot and killed.

Which goes for the shooter as well, right? Can you at least acknowledge that anyone in the area who attempts to stop the shooter will have a better chance if they are armed than if they aren't? So what's the problem?

Quote:

Except I said that the goal of the shooter isn't to avoid death, but to cause the most damage before being killed. The counter is trying to PREVENT the shootings from happening in the first place. While your solution helps to end a shooter on a rampage, it doesn't prevent the rampage. Since the proposed counter is to prevent the rampage, your solution is irrelevant.

Given that we don't currently have any effective means of ensuring we can prevent shootings from occurring, I think my solution is incredibly relevant. Certainly, there's no reason not to pursue it while we work on that magical means of prevention you want to have.

Quote:

Read above. So, you believe that a teacher too terrified to physically attack a shooter when attack will gain the courage and skills to take out a shooter while possessing a weapon.

No. I'm saying that everything else staying the same, any attempt by someone to attack the shooter will have a higher chance of success if the person attempting it is armed compared to if they are not. So if we assume that the ratio of people in the area who will try to stop the shooter remains constant, then the rate of success increases with the rate at which those people are armed. Again, this is not rocket science here.

Quote:

Once again, unless you're giving children guns, adults will always be the target as they will be the ones to stop the shooting armed or not. Your solution is nice, but it doesn't prevent the mass shooting.

I'm not arguing that this will prevent the shooting. I'm arguing that it will decrease the average number of fatalities that result from shootings. And that's better than *not* reducing that number. Again, I'm not precluding some other plans to prevent shootings. I just don't see any reason why we can't take steps to reduce the number of fatalities from such shootings while we wait for that perfect solution to arrive.

We can, however, just by removing the existing gun-free zone restrictions in schools, essentially get some level of security "free".

As a parent, I'm not really interested in encouraging more guns around schools just to get some discount "security" by wannabe cowboys.

You trust the faculty of your school with your child's well being every single day Joph. We're not talking about random strangers here. In the grand scheme of things, your child is going to be vastly more affected over the course of his life by a million other actions and decisions his teachers make than whether some of them keep a firearm in a locker in the faculty lounge. Which, hopefully, he'll never even know anyway.

You trust the faculty of your school with your child's well being every single day Joph.

With guns? Not really, no. Also, I've met his faculty and not a single Marine among them.

There a lot of Marines in Chicago Joph? So not one guy who hunts on the weekends, or target shoots? Are you sure? I think you'd be surprised.

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It's a irrational fear.

No, having a bunch of guns around the school for "free security" is an irrational solution.

Why? How is it irrational to fear something that happens? The Newtown shooting happened. The Colorado Theater shooting happened. The Virginia Tech shooting happened. It's not irrational to fear that these sorts of things have happened and thus will happen again, and thus perhaps we should do something to mitigate the harm when they happen.

An irrational fear is being so afraid of private ownership of guns that you're unwilling to allow the people you already trust with your child's wellbeing to have a tool available which might just one day save their lives. That's absolutely insane. There's no rationale for it other than "guns are scary".

How in the world could a gun in a teachers locker in the teachers lounge help prevent a school shooting? Is the gunman now gong to wait patiently while the teacher runs to the lounge and grabs his piece??

How in the world could a gun in a teachers locker in the teachers lounge help prevent a school shooting?

It's not. It will, however, significantly shorten the amount of time it takes an armed person to confront the shooter, and thus decrease the number of people the shooter is likely to kill. Which in turn saves lives. Isn't that our objective here? I get that some of you seem to want to wait for this perfect theoretical solution where we magically make the world free from any possibility of a person with a gun showing up on a school campus and shooting our children, but until that happens, isn't reducing the statistical number of fatalities from such shootings a worthwhile thing to do?

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Is the gunman now gong to wait patiently while the teacher runs to the lounge and grabs his piece??

Does the gunman wait patiently until the police show up? No? So if we assume it takes less time for a teacher to run to their locker and retrieve their gun than it'll take for the police to arrive, then this is better than waiting for the police to arrive, right? I mean, barring that aforementioned mythical magical solution that ends all school shootings, our options are "wait for the police to show up and stop the shooter" or "try to stop the shooter before the police get here". Why not give our faculty members the best chance at doing the latter and perhaps saving some of their students in the process?

So in your hypothetical situation, there is an armed shooter roaming the halls, and the teacher with his gun in the teachers lounge is able to sprint to the lounge, get into his/her locker, and get back to the shooter all without bein shot him/herself? I mean, come on. This only works if the teachers classroom and the lounge are close to each other but nowhere near the shoote, and the shooter doesn't know that there is a weapon in the lounge. Under your hypothetical, the odds of the shooter knowing about the weapon in the lounge is pretty great, since one of your legs of your argument is that if the shooter know there is an armed person in the school, he's less likely to show up.

Not that I am in any way advocating this, but your scenario works much better if the teacher has his/her weapon in the classroom with him/her. Which, lets face it, is just an assinine idea.

That's not to mention that the teacher would have to leave their classroom to get said gun from the lounge, which is a big no-no in a situation such as that. But hey, when you are desperate to hold onto your ***** extension you will come up with some of the dumbest ideas.

Do you hate children so much that instead of trying to think of a real solution you'd much rather just gamble with their lives? I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of other people's kids either, but risking their lives just because you're playing party politics? Shame, really. For one, your link on the statistics of armed civilians vs unarmed? It doesn't take into account that those armed ones were luckily there in the first place, so for "your" solution to work would require a Greg Jenko in every class room, not just one at some random place of a large facility. Something you keep ignoring, by the way. So in reality, the chances are just as good that by the time the designated Morton Schmidt found out about the gunner, ran to where the weapon was stored, got it out of the locked room, prepped it, and ran back there could be the same amount of dead kids.

That doesn't even take into account that now he's possibly out of breath and on an adrenaline high or the lack of training to deal with the situation properly, but there's already enough variables to blow up your hole-laden Death Star of a hypothetical without tossing in some ewoks.

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George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

So in your hypothetical situation, there is an armed shooter roaming the halls, and the teacher with his gun in the teachers lounge is able to sprint to the lounge, get into his/her locker, and get back to the shooter all without bein shot him/herself? I mean, come on. This only works if the teachers classroom and the lounge are close to each other but nowhere near the shoote, and the shooter doesn't know that there is a weapon in the lounge. Under your hypothetical, the odds of the shooter knowing about the weapon in the lounge is pretty great, since one of your legs of your argument is that if the shooter know there is an armed person in the school, he's less likely to show up.

There a lot of Marines in Chicago Joph? So not one guy who hunts on the weekends, or target shoots? Are you sure? I think you'd be surprised.

As fun as it might be to try and convince you that the tubby 20-something chick teaching Honors English isn't a retired Mossad sniper or something, I think I'll pass and just trust that I know better than you on this one.

Quote:

Why? How is it irrational to fear something that happens?

No, I said it's irrational to suggest that a solution is "free security" via more guns floating around the school. I mean, I thought I was pretty clear about that when I said "No, having a bunch of guns around the school for "free security" is an irrational solution" but I guess you needed the strawman at that point. Hope you didn't shoot him

It's not. It will, however, significantly shorten the amount of time it takes an armed person to confront the shooter, and thus decrease the number of people the shooter is likely to kill. Which in turn saves lives. Isn't that our objective here? I get that some of you seem to want to wait for this perfect theoretical solution where we magically make the world free from any possibility of a person with a gun showing up on a school campus and shooting our children, but until that happens, isn't reducing the statistical number of fatalities from such shootings a worthwhile thing to do?

Maybe, It depends how much it increases the statistical number of fatalities from gun accidents. Considering there are about 700 fatal gun accidents a year, it's not necessarily a net gain to carry out your plan even on the .0000000000000000000000000000001% chance it would do anything at all to lower the death toll at an event such as this.

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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

When we can get to the point where our troops, after years of intensive training and drills, kill fewer of our allies with friendly fire than our mutual enemies manage to kill, I'll consider the possibility that an armed teacher/guard might not increase the body count.

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

What's the chance that an armed teacher or school guard is ever going to encounter and successfully stop an armed whacko in the midst of a mass shooting in their school? answer: extremely slim

Compare that to the chance that the gun that is now in that school is found by a child - whether inadvertently or not, added to the chance that the gun is stolen by a teen, added to the chance that the gun is accidently fired or used in some 'stand you ground' incident that never realistically endangered a child. Answer:orders of magnitude greater

George Zimmerman is a totally sane law abiding responsible gun owner Right? Right. Right until he shoots some innocent unarmed kid.

If he's stopped sooner, then fewer people are killed. Which is the whole point of this. I'm not precluding other means to attempt to deter or prevent folks from attempting school shootings in the first place. I'm simply suggesting an incredibly simple and cheap solution which would mitigate the harm done during such shootings in the future when/if they occur.Your argument is like insisting there's no reason for seat belts or airbags in cars because the best way to prevent accident fatalities is to avoid ever getting into an accident. Well, in the real world, accidents will happen no matter how much we try to prevent them. Similarly, shootings will happen despite our best efforts. So let's have an extra line of defense aside from just hoping that our background checks, and gun restrictions all work.

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Which goes for the shooter as well, right? Can you at least acknowledge that anyone in the area who attempts to stop the shooter will have a better chance if they are armed than if they aren't? So what's the problem?

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No. I'm saying that everything else staying the same, any attempt by someone to attack the shooter will have a higher chance of success if the person attempting it is armed compared to if they are not. So if we assume that the ratio of people in the area who will try to stop the shooter remains constant, then the rate of success increases with the rate at which those people are armed. Again, this is not rocket science here.

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I'm not arguing that this will prevent the shooting. I'm arguing that it will decrease the average number of fatalities that result from shootings. And that's better than *not* reducing that number. Again, I'm not precluding some other plans to prevent shootings. I just don't see any reason why we can't take steps to reduce the number of fatalities from such shootings while we wait for that perfect solution to arrive.

Then once again, we're talking about two completely different scenarios as I already pointed out. I already admitted several times that your solution would mitigate the kills, but that's not the topic. The topic is to mitigate the mass shootings, hence the weapon bans. "Don't worry parents, with our new measures, only 10 kids are likely to be killed during a mass shooting. That's less than half from Sandyhook!"

Gbaji wrote:

When thousands of kids are paying hundreds of dollars every time they walk into the school, then we can talk about the practicality of having that level of security in our public schools. Forgive me for restricting my assumptions to the reasonable ones. We can't provide that level of security at schools. It would cost too much. We can, however, just by removing the existing gun-free zone restrictions in schools, essentially get some level of security "free".

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Sure. But you seem to be under the impression that we either stop the shooter cold right at the door before he fires a shot, or we can't stop him at all until the police arrive. The reality is that stopping every shooter at the door is a near impossibility, if for no other reason than most (all?) schools have multiple points of entry, and in order to ensure we could stop said shooter right there would require multiple guards at each of them. It's simply not practical.

Let's restrict our options to ones that we can actually do, ok?

I do recall stating that the shooter could just shoot the guard at the door, hence why people are against guns in the first place. I said a security checkpoint, a concept ubiquitously used. There's a middle school outside of Ft. Sil, Oklahoma that I visited as part of an assignment from lolphoenix. There's a one-way entrance/exit with a metal detector and a guard. It can be that simple.

Gbaji wrote:

Given that we don't currently have any effective means of ensuring we can prevent shootings from occurring, I think my solution is incredibly relevant. Certainly, there's no reason not to pursue it while we work on that magical means of prevention you want to have.

That's the point. We're trying to create an effective measure to ensure that we can prevent shootings, (i.e. the weapon bans) and you're giving suggestions that do not get us any closer to the desired solution. So, while your solution gives results, it isn't relevant to this discussion, which is how to reduce mass shootings, not the number in mass shootings.

Gbaji wrote:

Sure. But the 30 something former Marine now teaching math at the local middle school, who is an avid target shooter and has a concealed license *will* be able to do quite a bit. Let's not pretend that all teachers must be elderly and helpless.

I'm not. I'm just living in the reality that teachers aren't the most suited for shoot-outs. So, unless you believe otherwise, then you agree.